One of the goals is to overcome the strong national division within Nordic medieval research, while at the same time exploiting and developing the insights gained from more than 150 years of research in each country. We do this by focusing on fields that have hitherto received relatively little attention, such as the importance of ecclesiastical and religious culture and the relationship between orality and literacy, but above all by systematic comparison between the countries and by placing the whole area in a general European context. We also aim at breaking down the traditional boundaries between the disciplines and show the interaction between our main fields of the research (state, religion, and culture).

The Nordic Centre for Medieval studies is financed by The Joint Committee for Nordic Research Councils for the Humanities and the Social Sciences (NOS-HS) who in 2004 decided to launch a Nordic Centre of Excellence Programme (NCoE) in the Humanities and Social Sciences. More information on the Nordic Centre of Excellence Programme can be found here